His Guilt
by JTBJAB
Summary: Guilt can play on all of us... especially when we forget something important... like a loved one! ONESHOT


Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with JA... only this storyline.

**His Guilt**

The drive was long and hot. He held his breath as he turned down familiar dusty roads, finally pulling up outside his destination.

Taking a moment to compose himself, he glanced around at the place he hadn't been in several years. The trees were blossoming, bursting with colour. A rainbow of flowers covered the borders of the paved walkways. And the ivy that had once been scarce now covered most of the side of the old decorative building.

He held his breath as he opened the car door and listened to the crunch of gravel beneath his feet. Standing still he listened to the birds in the trees, singing their songs in joy. Seeming to mock him, and the pain he felt. His chest and throat tightened. She had always liked to listen to the birds. She had said she liked how it made her feel. It was like she was free, that she could fly with them.

Closing his eyes and remembered one time when they had been together, and she had spread her arms like wings and ran down the hill they had been standing at the top of, and laughed as she fell and rolled to the bottom.

A small smile played at the edge of his lips, and a lump grew in his throat, threatening to choke him in tears. He slowly closed the car door, letting his hand linger on the hot metal; as if to prolong the process of his visit, burning each moment into his mind, never to be forgotten – an ever lasting reminder.

Listening again to the crunching gravel beneath his boots, he walked to the back of the car to retrieve the flowers he had brought for her. Her favourite. He always remembered, and would forever remember. They were the colour of her cheeks, the first time they had met, the first time they had kissed, and the first time they made love. Roses, the flower which had so many meanings, so much history, so much love.

Locking the car he walked slowly to the iron-gate. He fingered the elegant carvings on the post; lions - to guard and protect the defenceless. Mouths open in a silent roar, as if to give courage to those who passed through. His hand drifted to the latch, hesitation almost stopped him, but his heart made him go on. His heart told him he needed to do this. She needed him. She would have wanted him to.

The gate creaked as it was opened, causing a small sob to escape his throat. His slow methodical walk helped him calm before he reached where he was heading. He shouldn't have worried, by the time he moved from standing to kneeling his eyes had welled up again, with the tears he thought he could control. How wrong he was.

He read the words engraved with love in the marble.

'A loving wife and mother, taken before her time. She stood up for those she loved and will never be forgotten.'

He felt a lone tear run down his cheek as the guilt settled on his chest. He had forgotten her. He hadn't meant to, but there was a new light in his life. Though he had tried to reject it; turn it away. The hurt he was feeling, he deserved, and this new light took it from him. Took the reminder away – took his guilt away.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes in a silent prayer for strength. With a sigh he managed to clear his vision, no longer clouded in unshed tears. He sat motionless in front of the cold marble, before slowly laying the roses in front of the stone.

He remembered the horrors, which had filled his life. The nightmare his life had become. He had endured it for many reasons. But mainly, because it made him feel better, made him feel the guilt, which he so much deserved. Relishing in the pain, because it would never make up for him not making her his first priority.

It would never make up for the fact he had been in too much of a rush to tell her he loved her that morning – Too much of a rush to kiss her goodbye. He had barely spoken to her. And then the heated phone-call; the last time he had heard her voice – and she had been begging him to come home to her. Begging him to come home because she didn't feel safe; she had known. She had needed him and he had said he was too busy. Too bloody busy to protect his wife, when she was scared, when she had needed comfort, how could he?

He punched the ground. Tears of anger and regret rushed forth. Spilling into the soft soil beneath him; soaking into the ground, as though seeking for comfort from her. The frustration he felt almost overwhelmed him. Justice had been so close. But yet again, someone had taken what was rightfully his, taken what he needed and now… damn it, he needed her. The light in his life only barely displayed the shadows, leaving much in the dark.

Why had it been her? Why? He ran his fingers over the words in the marble. As if to rub them away, make the events which had happened rewind and erase themselves. Guilty that he was trying to turn away from the light in his life. Guilty again for being happy when she could not be. Guilty because he lived, and she did not. Guilty because, unlike her, he would see their son grow up, have a family be happy. She had missed so much, and he missed her.

Her eyes, the way they creased at the edges when she laughed. The way her lips felt when he kissed her. The sparkle of life, which everyone had bathed in and loved, he had loved her so much. Tears still ran their path as fate meant them too. He no longer bothered to brush them away. Hating the feel as they ran down his cheeks, the pain it brought that she was no longer there to wipe them away.

If only he could have said he loved her, kissed her on the cheek and said goodbye one last time at least. If only he had listened to her pleas to leave work. If only he had gone home, to comfort her when she had said she was scared. If only he had been there to protect her, so she could still be around to see their son growing up. If only he had realised that work was not everything. If only he had stopped working so hard and remembered that **she** was everything.

If only, two of the most used and often – and in this case – the saddest words in the English language. He almost scowled. The ironies in his life never amused him and he as much as the guilt mocked him, he knew that things could still get worse. But, if he could just… see her… one last time…

But it was not to be.

He knew that.

He had accepted that.

Hadn't he?

The End


End file.
